GRK 2739:  KD²School – Designing Biosignal-Adaptive Systems for Decision-Making Processes

• Subject Area: Economics
• Term: since 2021
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 447089431

The focus of the first funding period of the KD²School graduate school was the investigation and design of adaptive systems to support economic decisions. The KD²School's research program included (i) technical and neuroscientific fundamental and cross-sectional questions, (ii) individual decisions in everyday life, (iii) team decisions in the digital working world, (iv) group decisions in the area of ​​online participation, and (v) limits of adaptation. The young scientists involved were offered a diverse interdisciplinary qualification and support concept as well as a rich international network. At the same time, a unique infrastructure in the form of five complementary and digitally networked laboratories was made available in order to promote highly innovative research in terms of both topic and methodology. This gave our young scientists a unique starting point to analyze economic decision-making and to design adaptive systems in their research. Based on the successful work of the first funding period, we are developing our concept in the follow-up proposal for the KD²School graduate school, taking into account the enormous leaps in development in the areas of sensor technology, biosignal processing and artificial intelligence (AI). After completing the graduate school, our young scientists will be excellently equipped in research as well as in industry. Building on our results from the first funding period, we want to further develop the processing of biosignals to design biosignal-adaptive systems for decision-making processes in economic contexts as a central unique selling point of the graduate school. Biosignals provide information about current user states as well as behavior at any time. As modern sensor technology is increasingly miniaturized and integrated into portable, always-connected digital devices, large amounts of multimodal biosignal data can now be recorded and processed and interpreted in real time using machine learning methods. In order to leverage the potential of the disciplines involved and to continue to achieve the greatest possible synergy effects in the graduate school, in addition to essential basic topics, the two economically and socially highly relevant application scenarios "Interaction with Generative AI" and "Virtual Collaboration" with reference to individual and team decision-making in professional and private life are considered. In addition to experimental investigations with and for users, the continuation proposal places a special emphasis on the development and design of biosignal-adaptive systems and continues to rely intensively on experimental investigations. To this end, PIs from the disciplines of computer science, information systems, management, psychology and neuroscience work closely together across disciplines.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
• Co-Applicant Institution: Universität Bremen
• Participating Institution: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Alexander Mädche
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Michael Beigl; Professorin Dr. Barbara Bruno; Professor Dr. Ulrich Ebner-Priemer; Professor Dr. Martin Klarmann; Dr. Michael Knierim; Professor Dr. Martin Mundt; Professorin Dr. Petra Nieken; Professorin Dr. Jella Pfeiffer; Professor Dr. Benjamin Scheibehenne; Professorin Dr.-Ing. Tanja Schultz; Professorin Dr. Christiane M. Thiel; Professor Dr. Christof Weinhardt